'He made them stand against the wall crying.'
Is it possible for 'crying' in this example to refer to the pronoun 'them'?
The only interpretations I find syntactically possible are
"He made them' stand [against the wall] crying' "
and
"He made them stand against [the wall' crying'] "
(where the ticks ' indicate the items that belong together).
Pragmatically, the second is unlikely, so the first one is the only realistic interpretation; but for example
"He made them stand against the wall looking battered"
is more ambiguous (though I would still go for attaching the description to "them" without more context), and you can probably find other examples which are even more finely balanced.
The third parse
"He' made them stand against the wall crying' "
I find impossible unless there is a comma before "crying".
Yes, that is how they stood against the wall. Or at least that's how I have learned to group the words; I can see these interpretations being valid:
(First post on this SE, woohoo.)